Chapter II: The Start of My Healing Process
Reflecting on the story I’m about to share brings up so many emotions, gratitude, vulnerability, and the weight of how far I’ve come. Sharing pieces of our journeys, even the hardest ones, is powerful. It’s how we connect, heal, and remind ourselves that we’re not alone.
I hope my story reminds you that healing doesn’t have to look perfect. It's a process that can take time and can be hard, but it will take you to a better space.
Trust me.
The Start of My Healing Process
Growing up, I didn’t question things. I accepted what I was told because that’s what I was taught to do. But something shifted. It was like the universe kept showing me a new way of seeing things, and I began to understand that maybe there was more than just what I had been taught. I was starting to become open to learning new things and realizing that other perspectives could be true too.
Studying psychology shifted my perspective and I felt a deep sense of clarity. From my first psychology class at Pasadena Community College, I knew I was on the right path. The more I studied psychology, the more I realized I wanted to teach psychology to others, but I learned most programs required a PhD, not just a master's. When I found the Marriage and Family Therapy program at USC, it felt right, so I applied and was accepted.
Starting the program at USC was another life-changing moment for me. My brain exploded again with new information, and for the first time, I realized how much my own healing was tied to my education. My schooling taught me about generational trauma, about the pain my family and I carried for years. I learned how to begin healing that trauma, and it became clear that my education was going to play a huge part in my ability to help others heal as well.
While I was in grad school, my immediate family was going through their own struggles. My parents had been in an abusive relationship for years, and I grew up witnessing domestic violence between multiple people in the home. My relationship with my parents was chaotic as well as my relationship with my siblings. As I learned how to help others, all I wanted was to help my family heal.
But I learned that I couldn’t heal my own family by being their therapist.
That truth broke me.
I felt anger, resentment, guilt, and responsibility. I wanted to fix everything and take away their pain, but I couldn’t. That realization was hard to accept. It was a blessing and a curse because I realized the only thing I could do was to focus on my own healing.
It was during this time that I decided to start therapy. It wasn’t something I initially chose for myself. My school recommended it, and my perfectionism led me to do it. I thought it was the “right thing to do” to be a “good” student and therapist.
I spent my entire first session crying, hyperventilating, and feeling completely vulnerable. It was the first time I had ever allowed myself to show that kind of emotion. I had always kept my feelings inside, thinking it was my responsibility to handle everything on my own. The therapist later called me and said she had forgotten to do a suicide assessment because of how much I had been crying. That shook me, but it also showed me just how much I had been keeping inside.
Even though I was crying in that first session, I didn’t open up fully. That’s when I remembered my first experience with therapy—back in 6th grade. I cried every day for months, and the school sent me to see a psychologist. I remember having just one session with her, but I didn’t tell her anything about my home life. I didn’t tell her about the domestic violence I had witnessed at home because, as part of my trauma, I had learned to keep secrets. I had been trained to protect my family by staying silent about what was happening behind closed doors. I couldn’t open up to her, and I couldn’t open up to anyone.
My second therapy experience came while I was in graduate school. That’s when I first began talking about my trauma—specifically, the domestic violence I had witnessed in my family. That was when I learned I was experiencing PTSD and depression, but I was in denial about it at first. I told myself, "I'm fine, I’m happy," but deep down, I knew I wasn’t. It was like I was still trying to live up to this image of being perfect, even as I was struggling internally. Therapy helped me acknowledge that I needed to heal, and that was the first step.
However, I wasn’t fully ready to accept the deep truths about myself. It wasn’t until much later, as I began working in community mental health and feeling the effects of burnout, that I began to understand the power of healing—both for myself and for others.
TEACHABLE MOMENTS
So many of us try to change the people around us.
We try to help them heal as we are healing, but this will only set you back in your healing journey. The only way to change a relationship dynamic is to change the way you interact with that person in that relationship.
“If you want to change the other, change yourself first.” -Esther Perel
Notice the physical sensations in your body. Take a deep breath and repeat after me, “It is not my responsibility to carry the weight of my family or the world.”
HEALING VOCABULARY
Attunement
a·ttune·ment
being aware of and responding to emotions of self and others.
When I first learned this word I was able to understand why happiness, calm, and peace or regulation could never be a permanent state of being. Everything with life force energy oscillates between contraction and expansion. When we are healing, we must find our equilibrium and accept that we will oscillate between regulation and dysregulation. To find your equilibrium, practice tuning into your emotions (attunement).
Oscillation
os·cil·la·tion
Involves going back and forth between two positions or states, back and forth across soxme point of equilibrium.
